iNat’s taxonomic authority for plants is Plants of the World Online, and we try to minimize deviations from it without good reason. POWO has a concept of an “ unplaced name ”, one that doesn’t fit within its hierarchy. There are several possible causes, some of which relate to problems with type mater…

I’m not sure, but I think the site follows your first suggestion with some of the fungal groups.

Thanks @psweet ! I decided that it was worthwhile to go ahead with Option 1 and created a new taxon for Loncomelos koprulense . If we get a consensus that a different approach would be better, I can always submit a taxon change or deletion.

For what it’s worth, I believe Ornithogalum koprulense works Latin-wise as far as the grammar concern. Unfortunately, POWO and other aggregators often take checklists as taxonomic authority sources when they are often not designed to be. (“Sometimes a checklist is just a checklist.”) In point of fa…

[image] rupertclayton: I’m not even sure the Latin agreement is grammatical. That’s rarely a serious concern for binomials. They draw from a variety of languages (obviously Greek and Latin primarily, but far from exclusively), and composite them in odd ways at times.

In this case, the generic name “Loncomelos” is based on the Greek noun “melos” (μέλος), which is neuter, so an adjectival specific epithet should also be neuter, making the “-ense” ending appropriate. (Greek neuter roots like loma (λωμα), fringe or border, sometimes generate generic names that look …

I think that both creating a temporary new combination (as Ornithogalum koprulense) or making the site taxonomy to allow a binomial be placed under a different genus could be two relatively good solutions. Temporary binomials could be justified just to align with the taxonomic backbone in the absen…

This came up during the Clidemia Miconia lumping. There was one Clidemia species which had never had a Miconia name published, so it was unplaced in POWO. But Clidemia is now a dead genus and we needed to empty it out to merge it into Miconia. So we took the Clidemia name and grafted it to Miconia. …

[image] kevinfaccenda: I don’t think that we should create new combinations which have never been published as it’s greatly confusing. I’d advocate for grafting the unplaced name to the genus where it’s supposed to be but NOT creating a new combintation. :100:

How should I handle a new species that POWO lists as "unplaced"?

Curators

earthknight April 14, 2023, 1:13am 10

I’m not disagreeing that there is a ‘correct’ grammar, I’m just pointing out that with binomials it’s often pretty loose.

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How should I handle a new species that POWO lists as "unplaced"?

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